Matt Baril

I'm finally reading The Long Tail, Revised And Updated (affiliate link), yes I know it was about time, and I realized Anderson explained very well, and in economic words, something I've been fascinated about and which I used a lot for my 28 business ideas: aggregators. After reading Anderson, I think I've come to a better understanding of the true power of aggreagtors for building communities, as well as its power for new potential ventures.

Aggregators are great for many reasons and they benefit everybody, people who create them, people who use them, and even people who get their content aggregated. Aggregators filter part of the junk out of the useful stuff and most importantly, they help build communities. But aggregators are only one part, and here is what I believe is a better overview of where aggregators fit in.

Anderson says 3 things have made long tail economies possible:

1. Better access: This is provided by new technologies such as Internet, cloud computing, cheap hosting, cheap Internet access, etc. New technologies have empowered your browser and it allows more people to easily reach out and connect with you.
2. More stuff: Here the aggregator comes in handy as it is its job to fetch the most relevant products/services/information and deliver them to you.
3. Filters: If you have no filters, it means you have an easy access to a great deal of stuff, which by definition will be mainly useless to you (it's an aggregate of niche products that don't appeal to the mass). You need tools to filter out what's not aligned with your tastes and a good CMS (Content Management System) will help you do just that.

What Anderson doesn't say however, is that once you have content, users and filters, you've created a platform. From a business perspective this is a very good news, because you can build a platform with little resources: a hosting contract, a domain name and a CMS (drupal, magento, joomla!, etc.) and you're good to go. The keys will be to find your niche and build up a community, two things that are easier said than done.

For the skeptics, there is definitely a strong business case for a platform, because you're adding value by offering a large selection of sorted products, connecting people with similar tastes to one another, and creating more value from the users through reviews, ratings, recommendations and word of mouth (free marketing). It also means that you are getting rid of the less profitable and more difficult part of creating innovative great content and focus on building a community around your platform and its products/services. It reduces risks in two ways, on one hand the initial cost is lower than a typical venture that creates content or goods, and on the other hand, a platform can adjust to new tastes much quicker since it can easily scale up its catalog.

To conclude, a good example of an international company who has been very successful doing just that is Amazon.com. They've even been a step further by offering what Anderson calls an Aggregator-for-hire. They basically offer other vendors to use their platform which means they don't even have to bother fetching content.

I've recently found my niche and I'm working hard at getting a platform up and running. Do you have yours?

Currently working in a customer service job, one thing that seems endless is customers calling in to vent and use their anger to threaten, manipulate and extort. This is a situation that any community builder will have to face sooner or later. It might be because you posted an article that some people profoundly disagreed with, it might be something you said in an email, a presentation you gave, something you promised that didn't happen, etc. You have 2 options in such a situation, either you stay calm and listen to the person, or you just get angry yourself and try to end the conversation as soon as possible. In a digital context, that would mean you don't bother replying to the comment, emails, tweet, Facebook message, etc.

I recently had the chance to talk to a really nice customer who had herself a long experience in customer service, and she told me that little trick that I just love. The rumour has it that the golden rule in Customer Service is "The customer is always right", but I strongly believe this is wrong and it can be a slippery slope to tell anyone they're right when they're not and it can seriously harm the company or your brand. It doesn't mean you have to tell them they're wrong though. One thing that has become standard and is taught in most customer service training is "Never interrupt a venting customer". People just want to vent and if you listen to them and agree with them, it's fascinating to see how many of them just calm down very quickly, thank you and end the conversation. For the more "challenging" customers, one sentence can come in handy and give the conversation a new direction: "How can I help you?"

Listen to the customer, agree with him/her that what happened was very unpleasant and offer your apologies, summarize the situation by recognizing the customer's pain, but also explain the situation from the company's point of view. Make sure you end by saying "How can I help you." Here is an example:

Customer: This is the worst service ever, I placed my order 5 days ago and your website says 3 days delivery. I want my money back otherwise I swear I'll go talk to the media about your false advertising and crappy service! This is outrageous! You're quite fast to take the money off my credit card, but when the time comes to deliver on your promises that's a whole different story.

CS Rep: I understand this is very disappointing, and I would feel just the same if I were you. You were hoping to have this order delivered today right on time for your daughter's birthday, but the package hasn't arrived yet. Your order was sent within the 2 business days as promised on our website, but it was unfortunately held at customs for 4 days which is the reason why you still haven't received it. The good news is that it's now on its way and will reach its destination tomorrow according to [enter delivery company here]. I understand your frustration and as a loyal customer I believe you deserve the best service. How can I help you?

While this alone won't solve everything, it's most likely to change the tone of the conversation and put the customer in a different mindset, trying to cooperate instead of fighting with you. When building a company, a blog or your personal brand, it's not the way you deal with your fans that will set you apart, but the way you can successfully deal with people who hate or are really angry with you, what you do and waht you say. Everybody can be nice to their fans, that's not very difficult. Converting an angry customer, reader or user in a fan is however the best advertising you can possibly get. If someone has been ranting about you for some days and then changed his or her mind, it will have a profound positive impact on the people they have talked to about you. You'll need some marketing, PR, psychology, diplomacy and self control to be successful, but all the effort is worth it.

Idea #25 Take pictures of tourists that can be purchased later on in a following-up email

This idea is not mine. As we were at science world today, selling chocolate bars for a project for an entrepreneurship class and taking a picture of our latest customer as a proof of our work, a bystander said: "You guys should take peoples' email and sell them the pictures." That reminded me different places in Europe where I've had the chance to go and where you can have your picture taken by a professional photograph and you can buy it on the spot. Most of them used polaroid and the quality was not the best, but people would still pay up to 5€. These photographs might exist in Vancouver, but I've never seen any in 3 years leading me to believe there is still room available in the market. All the material required would be a good digital camera you can buy for about $1000 and a license to do business on the street.

Once you find the perfect spot to work (e.g. Steam Clock, Capilano Bridge, Stanley Park, etc.) then you offer people to take a picture of them for free with no engagement required. They could then simply write their email address on a sheet of paper so the picture with a watermark across it can be sent to them. This is direct marketing and people expect your email, you've got the permission to connect with them when they wrote their email address. This opportunity should be fully tapped into. The email should contain a link to a website were other pictures of Vancouver landmarks could be purchased. Frames and even souvenirs could be sold through the website.

In order to attract peoples' attention, a small flat tv screen displaying some of the best shot ever taken could be set on a table close by. If a picture is sold for an average of $5 without a frame, and the cost is about $1 then not many pictures need to be sold per day in order to cover cost and salary. If the website is set properly and the marketing targeted enough, customers could even buy more than the simple $5 picture increasing average spent per customer.

Idea #23 Warehouse companies can rent based on their space need. Inventory & shipping is managed for them

Working for an e-commerce company, I realized that it can be a serious problem for us to ship to Europe. A typical delivery takes 4 to 6 weeks and can be held in customs for a very long time and customer might even be charged taxes as well. It makes doing business difficult. The normal answer to that is to buy a warehouse and have stock in Europe, however this isn't always very useful for smaller e-commerce organizations.

The idea would be to buy or rent a warehouse which would be divided based on customers' needs; any customer could rent the amount of square feet they need. The warehouse would be dynamically divided to meet customers' needs. In order to accommodate smaller businesses, inventory as well as shipping would be automatically managed for them. If they close a sale on the continent, the warehouse would package and ship for their customer's customer. That should be appealing to any small e-commerce website who wants to improve sales on another continent without the high fix costs and risk associated with buying or renting a large warehouse.

Idea #21 Business case studies database. Businesses can submit their cases & users pay, d/l and rate them

Something that's really useful in business is a case study. It helps to understand how a certain company has dealt with a problem or an opportunity and most importantly the outcome from their actions. It comes in handy when dealing with things that have not yet been properly tested or studied. These are things that are so new or rare that you won't find it in a school book so you're usually left with two options: 1) jump blindfolded or 2) learn from people who have jumped blindfolded before you.

I like the second option better and I wish there was a platform on which we could share case studies. As a student, I have worked on a couple of them and I believe I learn a lot more from them than from books. I also know that many people are looking for case studies and the idea here would be to offer that platform where people could share. People who have written a case study could sell it. Case studies would be classified by tags, rated by users and a summary would be available. The website would be targeted to scholars, business people and students in general, trying to connected all these people together.